Rising Abruptly (3 page)

The wind rises. A devilish wind bent on pushing her into the void. Now, she's freezing on her pile of rock. Unsheltered, she shivers.

She says: My gendarme whispers in the wind. I get closer. And would you believe it? The rock feels warmer, very much warmer, as if it were in direct sunlight.

I say: Whispers? You mean, you hear the wind whistling against the stone formation?

She says: My gendarme, hard and cold, turns out to be warm and tender. The ideal lover.

On my chair, I shiver, too overcome with profound inquiétude to respond.

What now? Rats are moving in on her. Packrats. Where are they coming from? She can't say. Those rodents of the heights gnaw away at climbing ropes, but my sister has no gear of any kind. And so, she claims, the wind and the packrats become the messengers of the mountain. Overnight, she learns everything there is to learn about climbing.

Her monolithic gendarme tells her mountain tales. He moans the names of all the mountains for the climbing. She repeats the names to remember them. The litany lasts all night. He whistles those secrets deep into her bones and sinews, heart and mind. She engraves the secrets deep into her memory. As rocks multiply on her hard bed, her stone lover seduces my limber sister with mountain science, with mountain lore.

I can't resist cautioning her: My dear little sister, beware. People put a great deal of meaning, too big a deal, in stories of stones.

She says: I was never good at love. How to make a guy happy. How to understand his silences. How to laugh with him and not at him. How not to lose patience each time he drops crumbs on the floor.

So, that's it. To escape a life spent sweeping floors, my inflexible sister falls in love with a limestone gendarme; my passionate sister falls in love with the vertical line. That's what she calls the seduction of wild land. The wild, always the same, and yet, always changing, like an attentive and inventive lover.

It is my turn to whisper: And fear? How do you deal with it?

She says: Fear is as strong as the void that tugs at you. It's a little blue flame that dances on the rock beside you. Vertigo gnaws away at your resolve the same way that time works on a fortress that lasted one thousand years and collapses it in one second. But up there, you don't think about vertigo. You don't think about the fall. Your entire being is utter focus. Up there, you are no longer distracted. All of your concentration dances on a needle.

Again I whisper: And bloody skin, Angel? Surely, your torn flesh?

She says: Your body no longer exists. You have no skin, no bladder, no stomach. Even your thirst, you ignore. All your pain centres are closed for the day. And you climb. Up there, your body works for you. How to explain? Your body in action works for you, but also, it carries you outside of itself. Love? The sublime? Words fail, dear brother. Words fall off. You no longer need words. All I can tell you right now is that you know,
you know
, that you'll do anything to stay in that state. What you will give up, how far you will go to be in that silence, to remain in that frame of mind. In the quiet. It is the most joyous vertical gymnastics you could ever imagine. A slow, slow dance with an entire mountain.

And tonight, in my kitchen, now black as a pot, I am dizzy with vertigo, numb with mixed emotions. I still hear my mysterious sister's whispers: Holding on to my vertical line, I am up there for life. Holding on to my vertical line, I am in love with a stone gendarme who will keep sharing his secrets with me forever.

In my kitchen black as a pot, even though she left a long time ago, I hear my tragic sister breathing. I see her silhouette dancing on chairs. Walking across the counter. Hugging the ghostly white shape of the fridge. Even though it has been so long, I see her shadow-shape. And every evening, I refill the pitcher with cold, clear water. Her glass on the table still marked with her fingerprints, the rim still bearing the imprint of her lips. And every evening, the pitcher, her glass and I, we are waiting for her to storm in here with the full brunt of her wildness. Even though I know that
that
evening, she whirlwinded into here to say her farewells to me. To say her farewells to the safe and the familiar.

That was five years ago.

I will never overcome my fear of heights. But you, if you go into the Rockies, if you feel the seduction of wild land, if you hear the wind sing between stones, perhaps it is my sister, with her will steady as a rock, talking to you. She may be an entire mountain. Be kind to her wildness.

And when you come back down to my flat ground, I would dearly love if you stopped by and told me how she is.

Jagged Little Peak

MY HANDS RAW from the scrape of stone. My daughter's hands caked with blood. Not yet seventeen and she sneaks back home at dawn with bloody hands. I search the smooth limestone face. Insert my left fingers into a thin fracture. Cup a nodule jutting from the solid mass with my right fingers and wedge my toes into narrow cracks. I haul myself up another metre. Repeat the moves over and over.

Wind whistles in my helmet and rough stone tears into my fingertips. I reach a slanting ledge covered with rubble. To avoid the risk of an eight-hundred-metre fall to the valley floor, I wrap nylon slings around a couple of rock horns and clip in another sling girth-hitched to my harness. Safely anchored to the mountain, I throw up with abandon.

A raven perches on an exposed ridge, showing interest in the disgorged matter. Its croaking echoes my daughter's sniggering words.

Mom, you're such a chicken.

In a glint of sun, the bird's feathers are bleached. My Alex, white face carved in snow, hands etched in scarlet. Alexandra dances barefoot on serrated stone. Sniffs the wind and throws herself over the edge, her long black hair floating behind her.

Another glint of sun, and the raven folds its wings and dives into the abyss. Dizzy, I grab the stone.

A rock slide tumbles between two ribs of the mountain. I listen to the hollow sound of rocky debris shattering as the stones bounce high before landing far below. For a long time, I hear them collide into their resting place. At dawn, our daughter triggered her own rock slide.

I just told you, Mom. I had a fight with Jan. I am not staying at her house. No way.

Come with us. You used to love climbing.

She accused me again. Me and these stupid mountains. Me and my stupid obsession. She hates everything and everything is stupid. Most of all, she hates to comply.

Sam stepped over the rocks of hatred strewn about our kitchen.

Sweetheart, today is your Mom's fortieth birthday.

Alex hung her head, tears welling in her mascara-smeared eyes.

This is a special climb for us. You know. Our jagged little peak, he finished with a disarming smile.

Alex sank to the floor. Sam held me in his arms.

Jo, we can't leave.

Can't you see? She's playing you against me.

There's a serious problem, here. We have to deal with it. What's going on?

Tethered to my ledge, I urge him to read her diary. He knows it doesn't count as snooping. Peering at the void, I mumble: At least, let it be her own blood. In the kitchen, Sam whispered to me that the mountain could wait, then gently put his hand on top of mine. Now, something soft brushes across my wrist. Startled, I slip on the rubble. Would have gone over the edge, but for the grace of my slings tying me to the mountain. Sam whispers in my throbbing ear that you don't climb in anger.

I'm forty, love, I tell the rocks. I couldn't wait. I wouldn't wait.

Sam chose to stay home. I had no choice but to climb alone. For a whole week, fighting dread and nausea, I had psyched myself up to such a degree, I couldn't let go of the anticipation. At last, today we would succeed, we would stand on the summit. Three times in two years, we've had to turn back. Hail and verglas. Then, danger of avalanche when we ventured out too early in the season. And last time, my slip. The fall left me too freaked to climb on, and with slashes across my arms that would not heal. And this morning, Alex's eyes dared me to climb solo. She dared me. I had no choice.

The raven glides above my ledge. Better get moving before you turn to stone. Go ahead. Holler. It'll help shake off your inertia and dismiss the irrational fear that has made you sick for a quarter century. I scrutinize the waves of rock walls and ribs and chimneys guarding the summit. This is as far as Sam and I managed to climb. From here on, I am on new ground. Must push upward, alone. On this day of my fortieth, the cloudless sky heartens me.

Grip the rock, raise one foot, heave yourself a little higher with each thrust of the body. Let hands and feet find cracks, let flesh and rock mesh, let no thought enter the mind. Establish the rhythm of the climb and the mountain may grant a moment of happiness. The afternoon spins fast on its axis, time unnoticed, body and mind so utterly engaged.

Sprawling shadows force me to look at the sky. Holy scree! Thunderheads. I reach a shallow alcove between vertical ribs.

Lightning. Pinned in my narrow niche, I expect the next thunderbolt to crucify me, to turn me into a carbonized casualty of the summer climbing season. Alex and the lightning strobes of her diary.

Jan begging me to go to that party. Would be cool, she said. It was—the beer, the guitars. Until that dude showed up with his old man's rifle. Idiot, full of pride and power. Then the shot went off. Everybody scattering, screaming. Jan whimpering on the concrete floor, coughing and shrieking. Begging me to get her out of there. She's so dumb. I kicked that asshole in the jaw with my foot. A side kick as I was lying on the floor. Kind of reminded me of splayed legs on a rock climb. Stretching to reach a solid hold. Good move, I thought. Good move! Mom and Dad would shout over the wind. The guy dropped the gun, shaking all over. I grabbed Jan and ran out with everybody in tow.

Ah, Alex. Lightning. Thunder. Recently, my daughter has been rewriting the book of risks. Two guys tailing her, she on foot, they in their pickup truck.

How does it feel to be scared? I could ask Mom. Had to find out for myself. Running into an alley. The pickup engine screaming in the dead of night. The guys swaggering out of their truck. Me, running and running.

Alex, oh, Alex. Prey caught in the glare of headlights. Bolts of lightning criss-cross the black sky tinged with verdigris and leave the tingle of static electricity on my face. The storm rolls over me. At seventeen, I left the tamed nature of the east for the wild thrill of the west. I met Sam on the slopes, another crazy easterner bored with manicured lakefront cottages. We lost ourselves in the hills, learning the ropes, as it were, by trial and no error. Together, we discovered—we thought we invented—the way of the mountains.

Although as committed as Sam, on our way to every climb, I had to disappear among the last trees before we hit the rock. He teased me about my weak bladder and I managed to grin before throwing up on the moss. The vomiting ritual went on undetected for eight years until I became pregnant. Blaming morning sickness, I didn't have to hide anymore. Concerned for my health, he exhorted me to stop climbing. Nothing to do with morning sickness, Sam. I had to disclose my shameful secret. In the scree, I stood to lose it all. His love, his friendship, his confidence in such a craven partner. To make me feel better, or maybe he spoke the truth, he told me he knew all along. To make me feel better, but now I know he spoke the truth, he confessed to restlessness before every climb. That day, we climbed superbly.

Rain turning to hail pelts me. Under the hood of my rain gear, I huddle head between knees, closing myself off from the wild. What kind of game my Alex played in the slick wild of the city last night, I wonder. I blame myself for teaching her fearlessness.
Look, Mom! No hands
. Hands smeared with blood, now. Crimson across the sky. Thunder.

The storm moves on. I resume the climb, my mental battle in full swing, the rock wet and slippery. The higher I climb, the more I commit. The more I commit, the less willing I am to bail. Exposure increases and, directly below, the patient stones await to receive my fallen body. I repeat the solo climber's mantra: You must not fall. You must not fall. Concentration, technique and strength allow me a measure of bliss. Until the next crack opens in my resolve. Anxiety dilates my pupils, making the world blindingly bright. Slackens my muscles, now on fire. I growl and it scurries away, though watchful, ready to pounce in a gust of wind or when I reach and find nothing but rotten holds. After the storm, my inner storm in full swing.

Endless waves of rock rise before me, hiding a summit that may exist only in imagination. Lore has it that the mountain reveals itself only when you stand on it. I cross one rib of rock to climb an easier one. Soon realize my mistake, as the gully steepens over even greater exposure. I have no choice but to downclimb. I ain't no cat stuck in a tree. I can do this. Pushing outward with my arms braced against the two opposing walls of the gully, I inch my way down, my dangling feet searching the rock, my brain willing them to land on something. Before crossing back to the first rib, I rest in the safety of a small chimney, crouching among the broken limestone, arms bleeding.